5.  The applicant, Mr Vladlen Mikhaylovich Putistin, was born in 1934 and lives in Kyiv.
6.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
7.  The applicant is the son of Mr Mikhail Putistin, a former Dynamo Kyiv football club player who competed in the 1936 USSR football championship when the club took second place in the competition. On 9 August 1942 the applicant’s father participated in the legendary “Death Match” between FC Start – a team mostly composed of professional football players of FC Dynamo Kyiv who were working in a bakery in Kyiv at that time - and a team of pilots from the German Luftwaffe, air defence soldiers and airport technicians (“Flakelf”). The match is known for the humiliating defeat of Flakelf (FC Start defeated Flakelf by a score of 5 - 3), despite the Flakelf players’ alleged display of lack of sportsmanship, which included physical challenges on their opponents, threats of sanctions against them and unfair refereeing by an SS officer. The victory of FC Start in that match allegedly resulted in serious repercussions for its players, who were arrested and sent to a local concentration camp where four of the players were eventually executed.
8.  In 2002 the Kyiv authorities commemorated the 60th anniversary of that match. The commemorations received wide media coverage.
9.  On 3 April 2001 the newspaper Komsomolska Pravda published an article named “The Truth about the Death Match” (original title: “Правда о Матче Смерти”) and was written by O.M., a journalist from that newspaper. In the article she recounted a plan to make a film based on the events surrounding the match of 1942. The article contained an interview with the future director and producer of the film, A.S. and D.K. It also featured a picture of the match poster from 1942 which included the names of all of the footballers who had played in that match. The article mentioned the names of four Dynamo Kyiv players who had been executed (Kuzmenko, Klimenko, Korotkikh and Trusevych), but did not name the applicant’s father. It also stated that A.S. intended to involve Mila Jovovic, Jean Reno and Andriy Shevchenko in the production of the film. The name of the applicant’s father was not legible on the picture of the 1942 match poster. In one paragraph of the article, D.K. stated that, according to his sources:
“... Actually, there were only four Dynamo players in the Start team created by the director of the local bread factory. And these [were the players who] were executed. And other [football] players worked in the police, collaborated with the Gestapo.”
Original text in Russian: “...Собственно, динамовцев в команде «Старт», которую создал директор местного хлебозавода, было лишь четверо. Их и расстреляли. А остальные игроки работали в полиции, сотрудничали с гестапо.”
10.  In July 2001 the applicant instituted proceedings against the newspaper Komsomolska Pravda and the above-mentioned journalist on the grounds that they had disseminated untrue information about his father contained in the article above (see paragraph 9 above). He sought rectification of this information. He also wished to receive compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
11.  In particular, the applicant claimed that the article suggested that the applicant’s father had collaborated with the occupying police force and the Gestapo in 1942. In support of his claims, he supplied copies of documents of the State Security Service of Ukraine, which revealed that the archives held no information about the applicant’s father’s alleged collaboration with the occupying police force or the Gestapo and that no criminal proceedings had ever been instituted against the applicant’s father in that respect. The archives also confirmed that the applicant’s father had been detained at the Syrets concentration camp. The same information was held in the Kyiv Regional State Archives, which confirmed that the applicant’s father had participated in the “Death Match” and had thereafter been detained at the Syrets concentration camp.
12.  On 25 December 2001 the Obolonskyy District Court of Kyiv rejected the applicant’s claim. It held that the applicant:
-  was not a person who was directly affected by the publication;
-  the article was about a film script and contained neither the name of the applicant’s father nor the applicant’s name and it also made no allegation of the applicant’s father having collaborated with the Gestapo.
13.  On 13 March 2002 the Kyiv City Court of Appeal upheld that judgment. In particular, the court of appeal found that the judgment of the first instance court was lawful and well-substantiated.
14.  On 15 November 2002 the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the applicant on points of law.
15.  On 27 April 2000 the Moskovskyy District Court of Kyiv ordered the newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia to rectify information published about the applicant’s father on 8 October 1999. On 29 April 2000 the newspaper published the following text:
“Mr Putistin played for Dynamo [Kyiv]. In the summer of 1942 he and other players were arrested and sent to the Syrets concentration camp. In October 1942 he escaped.”
16.  In May 2002 the newspaper Argumenty i Fakty (in issue no. 19), published an article titled “Our Football Players Withstood Death” about the “Death Match”, which stated that only four football players from the “Death Match” had been arrested and sent to the Syrets concentration camp. The article did not contain any reference to the applicant’s father.
17.  The applicant requested the newspaper to rectify this article. In one of the following issues (issue no. 27), the newspaper published the names of all eight football players who had been arrested after the match, including the applicant’s father.
18.  The applicant, dissatisfied with the refusal of the newspaper to publish the information he himself had proposed, instituted proceedings before the Shevchenkivskyy District Court of Kyiv against the newspaper, seeking the rectification of its published material and damages. The proceedings ended on 28 December 2004 with a final ruling of the Supreme Court upholding the lower courts’ decisions against the applicant.
19.  On 12 May 2003 the Shevchenkivskyy District Court of Kyiv ordered the newspaper to rectify information published about the applicant’s father on 12 July 2002. The article was written by a journalist (K.) with the headline “The Myth about the ‘Death Match’”. It stated that the “Death Match” story had been created as propaganda by Soviet ideologists, and that the execution of four football players had been provoked by the NKVD (Peoples’ Commissariat of Internal Affairs, i.e. the Soviet police, predecessor of KGB, functioning as State security service).
20.  In particular, the order obliged the newspaper to publish the following:
“Mykhaylo Fedorovych Putistin played for Dynamo Kyiv and in the summer of 1942, after playing football matches with German teams, was arrested together with other members of his team and sent to the Syrets concentration camp.”
21.  The court also rejected the applicant’s remaining claim for damages. The order of rectification was upheld on appeal on 21 October 2003 and later, in cassation proceedings, on 31 August 2005.